The Pubbies and some tea party outfit were going to get hold of voter lists in Democrat-leaning areas, send postcards to the voters, and if the cards came back undeliverable -- suggesting the voter might be a ringer -- they’d do something really nefarious.

Want to know what it was? The Journal Sentinel did, so it asked. And the tea partier answered: “He said his group had planned to turn over any questionable voters or evidence of voter fraud to district attorneys for them to evaluate.”

Ooh, wow.

Ross’ group, One Wisconsin Now, peels off the charges like veils over at its website, and you ought to read it if only for the hissing sound as the air leaks out. Ross got hold of some tape from the cabal's meeting at which the plot was hatched, so he has real live Republicans on tape baring their darkest, secretest motives. Among them:

“[Y]ou run into the racial thing. You have people screaming, 'Oh, you're denying the minorities the right to vote.' No., we're denying their right to vote multiple times." [Tim Dake, GrandSons of Liberty]”

And:

“I was a poll watcher from 2000 to 2006 and if you've got a university in your county, or your city, students will come down in droves and then they will all vouch for each other. I had this one kid come in five times with five separate groups of people and this person brings in students, they're usually from Minnesota or wherever up by Eau Claire, and you go, 'Do you live here?' 'Yes.' 'Well do you have anything that shows your address?' 'No.' Then that one student says, 'I vouch for her, I vouch for him.' And they all vote. [Shane McVey, Eau Claire Tea Party]”

So, when among only themselves and plotting, the tea-partiers confess to . . . being opposed double-voting. That’s all that Scot Ross has?

Yes, apparently. The actual claim he makes is that the plot is about “vote-caging,” the act of getting legitimate voters thrown off the rolls so they’re surprised by being unregistered when they show up. Of course, in Wisconsin, if you show up and find you’re not on the list, you can register again, right then and there. Piece of cake: Just a little ID – driver’s license, utility bill, anyone you know willing to say you’re legit – and you’re back in the game. Any plot falls apart on the spot.

Though, as the accused tell the Journal Sentinel, there was no plot. They tried sending some postcards and didn’t uncover much. And, supposing they had, turning matters over to authorities isn’t the way secret cabals usually behave.

It is, rather, how people looking to stop vote fraud behave. Ask Milwaukee Ald. Jim Witkowiak, certifiably not a Republican or tea-party type, who did exactly this postcard maneuver after he figured he got shafted by vote fraud – and found good reason for suspicion. As he pointed out to me at the time, everyone should be ticked off about the possibility of vote fraud because, unlike having to re-register at the polls, it actually does disenfranchise someone who takes voting seriously.

“I honest to God think that some people don't want to believe that it exists,” Witkowiak told me, speaking utter and redemonstrated truth.

About Patrick McIlheran

A professional journalist since 1986, I worked as a reporter, copy editor and news designer at newspapers around Wisconsin and Minnesota before coming to the Journal Sentinel in 1997. I've written an opinion column since 2004. I grew up in western Racine County, am married and have three children. I now live in Milwaukee.